Modern Epic: The World System from Goethe to García Márquez
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Dissecting epics: cultural impact, classification conundrums.
If you're fascinated by how literary giants defy classification, 'Modern Epic' is for you. Franco Moretti doesn't just explore texts; he weaves a rich tapestry showing how these works shape culture and reflect power dynamics. It's a thought-provoking dive into what makes an epic, well, epic—a must-read for anyone who loves to dissect literature's role in society.
Modern Epic: The World System from Goethe to García Márquez
Regular price
- Unit price
- / per
ISBN: 9781859840696
Publisher: Verso
Date of Publication: 1996-04-17
Format: Paperback
Goodreads rating: 4.09
(rated by 80 readers)
Description
Literary history has long been puzzled by how to classify and treat these aesthetic monuments. In this highly original and interdisciplinary work, Franco Moretti builds a theory of the modern a sort of super-genre that has provided many of the “sacred texts” of Western literary culture. He provides a taxonomy capable of accommodating Faust, Moby-Dick, The Nibelung’s Ring, Ulysses, The Cantos, The Waste Land, The Man Without Qualities, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. For Moretti, the significance of the modern epic reaches well beyond the aesthetic; it is the form that represents the European domination of the planet and establishes a solid consent around it. Political ambition and formal inventiveness are here continuously entwined, as the representation of the world system stimulates the technical breakthroughs of polyphony, reverie, and leitmotif; of the stream of consciousness, collage, and complexity. Opening with an analysis of Goethe’s Faust and the different historical roles of epic and the novel, Moretti moves through a discussion of Wagner’s Ring and on to a sociology of modernist technique. He ends with a fascinating interpretation of “magic realism” as a compromise formation between a number of modernist devices and the return of narrative interest, and suggests that the West’s enthusiastic reception of these texts (and One Hundred Years of Solitude in particular
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*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.
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This is a well-read book, which means that the previous owner probably really enjoyed it! The cover and pages may include moderate foxing and annotations, but the text is not obscured and still readable. Moderate cosmetic defects and minor water damage may be present on the edges of the book. For paperbacks, there may be multiple crease marks on the spine.
*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.
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Dissecting epics: cultural impact, classification conundrums.
If you're fascinated by how literary giants defy classification, 'Modern Epic' is for you. Franco Moretti doesn't just explore texts; he weaves a rich tapestry showing how these works shape culture and reflect power dynamics. It's a thought-provoking dive into what makes an epic, well, epic—a must-read for anyone who loves to dissect literature's role in society.
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